Capita sends an interpreter with no qualification for a rape trial

Salanman / HMCTS Interpreting Reports
/ 21 March 2013

This happened last year but it's still better to mention it here. I was interpreting at Chelmsford Crown Court for a money laundering case. There I met someone I'd known for a long time and he told me that he was interpreting for a rape case. I couldn't believe it as he had no interpreting qualification whatsoever! He cannot even construct a proper sentence in English let alone the fact that he had never interpreted in his lifetime prior to ALS/Capita!

I told him that he should not be doing this and to my shock and horror, he told me: "I will carry on doing this until the judge pushes me out of the court room!" The same person is sometimes quite frank about his 'interpreting ordeals'. He told me once he was interpreting at Taylor House in London where he could not interpret the phrase 'personal surety'. He paused for a moment and told the judge: "Sir, I cannot find the right phrase". Everyone in the court was looking up and down. Then he was released from the case. On another occasion, the same person was calling me from a court room asking what an oath was. I will not be surprised if this person is still working for the courts!